These are very hard times. I see the city slowly going back in time to the bad old days of the 1970s-80s. Everywhere downtown are the homeless, the ill, the druggies, the alcoholics sleeping their highs off lying on the street or in doorways. The numbers of homeless continue to increase. The need is dire for housing programs to help the homeless transition out of shelter. Up until now, this need has been filled by DHS and nonprofits that liaise with landlords, often meaning huge profits for the landlords and middlemen who broker deals, often in "at risk" properties and vacant luxury apartment buildings. There is the greed factor, which I have discussed many times before in this column. With so much guaranteed taxpayer money going to landlords for rents two and three times the market value of their units, it is very attractive to rent to these agencies and groups. Under the Bloomberg administration, there were many incentives for landlords to build luxury housing, leaving a critical lack of affordable housing in communities. Many of these "luxury" buildings failed, and became vacant or "at risk" properties.

Five years ago, Westchester Square dealt with this issue concerning the St Peter's Avenue homeless shelter for women and children run by DHS. While we very well understood the need for such a shelter, we were angered and dismayed by the policies in place dealing with many aspects of citing of the homeless housing, or the "cluster and scatter site" housing utilized by DHS.

Now, we are seeing a similar, but not quite the same, situation with the Pelham Grand apartments. Supportive housing run by nonprofits and funded by state and Federal agencies that seek to transition people at risk of homelessness into regular housing run the gamut from those that have good support services on premises, to those that basically provide housing only. There is no doubt, that the better programs provide a valuable service to those in need.

AIDS Service Center NYC (ASCNYC) is a community organization that helps New Yorkers living with HIV and other chronic illnesses learn the skills to function independently in the community, supplying supportive transitional housing and other services. ASCNYC had an open house today, and a few community people and I went inside to find out about the programs, which have already been operating in the building since July. They explained to us that there is no drug treatment going on in the building, the clients are screened, there are many on-site services (but not mental health services, that is in another location), and that they do run an offender re-entry program, but that is downtown and not there. I found it interesting, and overall, I'm sure they provide a great service to those in need. But the appropriateness of the location is controversial.

New York, especially the boroughs, is made up of neighborhoods and often close-knit communities. All of the sudden, supportive housing units or homeless shelters are springing up in the heart of residential areas, with no notice to the community. While the needs of the clients are great, there is also a great need to preserve our communities. It is not right that residents are left in the dark about programs going in next door to them, waking up one day to find these new neighbors have come in overnight, as it were.

I have always found it a real tightrope to walk between the special needs population and our need to preserve the quality of life of our homes.

Once it is clear the program will stay in the location (which by the time you read this may have changed if funding for senior housing comes through), it is incumbent on both parties to reach out to the other. Perhaps the residents would benefit from learning more about the programs and the program should reach out for on-going feedback from the community about how to be good neighbors.

One thing I will say, the state of the city makes one thing clear: there will only be more people in need and more programs and shelters to come. We must find a way to accommodate both residents and special needs populations with mutual respect and understanding.

Now, back to WSZIO: we are almost at the end of our season. Family Fun Day was a huge success this year, the weather was beautiful and it was very well attended (easily several hundred). A week ago we held our kids' event at Pearly Gates Playground. As always, we enjoyed our good friend John the Magician's wonderful magic show (Simply Magic) and the Improv for Kids interactive show. Thanks to the Never Forget Foundation, we were able to raffle off many games and toys at the end of the event, and every child went home with something. Many thanks to our sponsor, Metro Optics, for their continuing support of WSZIO and the Westchester Square community, and to our wonderful, intrepid volunteers Tony, Dorothy, Stephanie and Ricky Lusk, Robbie, Paul, Desiree, and Woody (the other 50% of the WSZIO management team). All together, we will have participated in/or organized 17 kid's events this year.

Maybe next time we'll go back to the public education mess, but for now, TTFN.

Check us out on Facebook, wszio@aol.com, or our web site, wszio.org, to see our upcoming events.